


The Difference Between a Man and a King

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: F/M, Intrigue, Post-Movie(s), Pre-Relationship, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Yuletide 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 14:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13055688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: The morning after Bedivere settled a crown on his head in front of a cheering crowd, Arthur woke to a much less expected murmur of noise: the voice of the river waking up again as it wended its way past Camelot.





	The Difference Between a Man and a King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alamorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/gifts).



> Set immediately after the events of the movie. Borrows some details from the wider Matter of Britain, remixed to fit the movieverse take on things.

The morning after Bedivere settled a crown on his head in front of a cheering crowd, Arthur woke to a much less expected murmur of noise: the voice of the river waking up again as it wended its way past Camelot. Sometime during the night, the gorge below the castle had begun to fill back to its original banks, tearing at the makeshift docks and slave pens his uncle had built along its much-reduced course.

Half the castle had gathered atop the walls or along the causeway before the main gate by the time he'd dragged on a clean shirt and made his way to the battlements; the morning was a fine one, with only a few high wisps of cloud, and a faint mist rose from the growling water like the breath of a sleeping dragon.

The symbolism didn't escape him. He set one hand on the hilt of the Sword, and whistled softly at the whispers of power echoing to him through even that small amount of contact. Excalibur had been born out of a mage's staff; it remembered its connection to the land's magic, even when he wasn't channelling its full power.

The timing didn't escape him, either. Arthur had lived along the banks of that river, one way or another, for nearly the whole of his life; he had a healthy respect for its ebbs and flows, which eventually watered all of Southern England from Camelot to Londinium and down to the sea. Without the clear taste of magic in the air, looking down at the wreckage where Vortigern's branding barges had come upriver to moor, he would have been tempted to take it for a sign the gods favoured his reign. But even so, he'd given luck a nudge of his own too many times to take such wild fortune at face value.

He glanced over at his current shadow — Bedivere himself that morning; Arthur's motley collection of knights had been taking it in turn not to leave him alone since he'd come down from Vortigern's crumbling tower with the Sword in his hand — and jerked his chin toward the river. "Back to business as usual, it seems. Think we're meant to take it as a sign?"

Bedivere's gaze was cool and slightly amused under the leaf green of his cap; he glanced down at the frothing water, then crossed his arms over his chest. "The barons will certainly take it as a portent when they assemble for tomorrow's meeting ... as many of them also did when the water dropped and Excalibur was first revealed. Since the days when your grandfather began uniting the tribes left scattered and vulnerable by Rome's withdrawal from these shores, it has been said that the king and the land are one; it protested under your uncle's heavy hand, but already it restores itself under your rule."

"Makes for a pretty story, doesn't it," Arthur nodded, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He wondered what he'd find, if he rode a few days upriver; the remains of a rockfall or a scattered log dam perhaps? "I'd wondered where the Mage was yesterday, that she chose to send a hawk in her stead."

"Mmm," Bedivere pursed his mouth. The timing must have been just as obvious to him, but he was a bit more politic in his phrasing. "Where there is a poison, she said, there is a remedy. The mages ever preferred to keep out of our wars, but Vortigern and Mordred were as much a plague upon them as they were upon us."

Part observation, part caution, part reassurance. Arthur was reminded again that Bedivere had been a trusted advisor on his father's council long before he'd ever heard about a brothel brat laying a hand on Uther's sword, and nodded. So much of the rebels' efforts had been spent simply getting him in place to act, they hadn't had much time to discuss what would come next beyond the broad strokes, but so much was clear: they couldn't stop to rest on their laurels now, not and hope to hold the country for longer than it took for word of Vortigern's defeat to spread. Arthur's fame was still too new to convey the same level of respect without visible strength to back it up, and the Vikings' withdrawal would last only as long as it took Greybeard to get word of the new terms back to _his_ king.

"If the king and the land are one, then they are a part of it too, now," he acknowledged. "And who am I to criticise anyone for taking the necessary steps to weigh the odds in our favour?"

"You might be surprised," Bedivere replied mildly, raising his eyes to Arthur's tousled hair. He'd left the crown in his room that morning, still unused to its weight on his brow, and Bedivere's gaze was eloquent in his opinion of that omission. "It has not been so very long since Rome ruled these lands, but in the years since, we have had as many styles of rule as we have had kings. Your father was beloved, but he was a king used to war, not peace, and your grandfather spent most of his time trying to be the shining light for a civilisation on the verge of collapse. Vortigern cared only for the power the throne could bring him, not the people it was created to protect — and not a one of them would have thought of the mages as part of that people."

"Not even my father?" He'd spent the weeks between his visit to the Dark Lands and the first strikes against Vortigern's supply lines unable to do much beyond recover his strength and get to know the disparate members of the rebellion; most of them had been fighting more _against_ Vortigern and his policies than _for_ Uther's long-lost heir, but their memories of his father _had_ been mostly positive.

Bedivere shook his head, expression conflicted. "Uther was a Christian king; he and his father fought to uphold a civilisation that had wholly embraced that church. The mages are ... something else, of a culture that has always lived apart from _Romanitas_. Uther and his father treated with them in kind, with peace and respect but as a people set apart. And Vortigern's attempts to exterminate them since his scheme with Mordred failed have only driven that division deeper. If you had been raised here...." He let the thought trail off.

Arthur set his jaw grimly, glancing toward the long sweep of the red and gold banner hanging down from the nearest tower, then down the length of the wall at the mix of people gawking at the river below. Girls from one of the more popular brothels in Londinium mingled with roughly dressed young men armed with staves, a few rebels who'd survived Mischief John's attack on the cave, a scattering of former Blacklegs who'd shifted their allegiance, a leavening of town and castlefolk who'd kept their heads down as much as possible during Vortigern's reign, several boys in pages' livery who'd been freed from the slave pens but had no home to return to, and even a few nobles who'd arrived in time to bend the knee before his coronation. If he'd been raised in Camelot and come into his inheritance the usual way, he had no doubt the scene would have been far more ... orderly. But he hadn't, and wondering about what might have been was a waste of time.

"But I wasn't," he said. "I don't know much about being a king, Bedivere; but I do know how to be a boss, and I wouldn't be a very good one if I ignored or alienated a powerful resource just because they swear by different names."

A rueful smile tugged at one corner of Bedivere's mouth. "Why have enemies, when you can have friends," he replied, quoting one of Arthur's oft-used phrases.

"There's friends, and then there's _friends_ ," he said, nodding in return. "Trust me, I know the difference. I have no doubt where our Mage falls on that scale. What I _don't_ know is how far she speaks for her people; she always put that question off for after." 

"Then you already have as much of an answer as I can give you," Bedivere shrugged. "I know that she came with Merlin's approval; I dreamed of her before she arrived, and that is a particular power of his. More than that, you will have to discuss with her when she returns. Until then, however, I'm afraid you have other priorities. A message arrived just this morning of fresh uprisings in Kent."

Arthur ran a hand through his hair, then sighed. "Of course there are. I guess we can take that as a preview of the Vikings' answer." Most of the settlements along the Kentish coast owed their allegiance to Greybeard's king; Vortigern had allowed several tribes to settle there early in his reign, before he'd achieved full control of Britain's armies, as a mercenary force to help hold off the Picts in the north. But they hadn't left afterward, and they'd brought their families with them. Because of that, redbeards had not exactly been a rare sight in Londinium in recent times; that was why he hadn't realised before Jack's Eye pulled him on it that Greybeard's deeper-than-usual pockets were due to his being the leader of an ambassadorial party rather than just another ill-mannered immigrant.

"It would have happened soon anyway," Bedivere agreed. "But the timing is certainly ... suggestive."

Arthur cast one last glance down at the river, then turned away from the battlements and walked back into the castle. "Assemble the others, then, and send word to the kitchens. We'll break our fast at the Table and start roughing out a plan; I want to have a workable answer for my uncle's loyalists when they confront me about it."

"And what will _you_ be doing?" Bedivere quirked an eyebrow.

"Fetching my crown. And having a quiet word with Blue." With war on the horizon, the barons would no doubt be challenging him about an heir as well, and bloodline or no bloodline Back Lack's son was the closest thing Arthur had to one. The Lady of the Lake would just have to make allowances, if it came to young Gawain taking up Excalibur; in the meantime, he had neither the time nor the inclination to waste time courting the barons' daughters. He had another plan in mind, if the lady could be convinced, but it would need time for that to play out.

"Very well then, Your Majesty," his chief advisor replied, with a pointedly deferential nod.

"Oh, go on then." Arthur waved him off, grinning, and headed toward his quarters.

* * *

For all the fancy trappings and new titles everyone was wearing, there were surprisingly few differences between a brainstorming session around Arthur's new round Table and the ones they'd held in the cave, plotting how to tease Vortigern to stick his neck out. Finer clothes, finer furnishings, but the same back and forth of ideas, the same level ground for everyone to speak on. It made him feel a little less a stranger in his own life, kicking around strategies of what to offer which barons to secure their support for a campaign against the Vikings. Not so very different from kicking around strategies in managing the old neighbourhood, either.

The Mage arrived not long after they broke for supper, apparently on foot, the deep hood of her blue travelling cloak pulled up to shade her changeable eyes. Not a one of the guards, whether resistance, baron's man, or resworn Blackleg, dared stand in her way; one of the pages ran ahead to announce her. Arthur had her shown into the king's private study, and sent the page back out for a plate for her while he settled down to talk.

"I've kept a seat for you at the Table," he said, opening the conversation on a neutral note. "I know you've seen it; you're welcome to take it whenever you're here at the castle."

She pushed back her hood, a faint smile curving her mouth as she sat down. "I've seen it," she acknowledged. "As I've seen the others you've chosen for your council. An interesting beginning to your reign, to be sure."

"Ladies and gentlemen, knights and bastards, warriors and ordinary citizens all together," he agreed. "I couldn't have won the crown without them; figured I might as well make them do their part of the ruling, too."

"And that includes me?" she asked, leadingly.

"I'm here because of you, as much as any of the others," Arthur agreed. "So it seems only right that I ask what you will of me, now that I've reached the goal you came to guide me to in the first place."

Dark brows arched over pale eyes, and she glanced up at the red and gold Pendragon banners someone had hung in there to replace Vortigern's silver and black décor. A symbol of prophecy itself, as much as Excalibur, representing that goal in the flesh; both destination and starting point for him, with tyranny behind and an uncertain future before. "Are you certain that's the question you want to ask? What _I_ would will of you?"

"What, you think I should ask whether you had anything to do with the river this morning?" he replied, unbuckling his sword-belt and laying the sheath open side up on the table in front of him. Uneducated he might be by a nobleman's standards, but he was no stranger to intrigue, and she knew that; though perhaps she just wanted to hear him say it out loud. "Or maybe what _Merlin_ would will of me? Or what your name is? Or maybe even whether those last two questions amount to the same thing."

She blinked, then broke into a wry smile. "Any or all of the above. Though the fact that you have chosen not to ask any of them tells me as much as the question you _did_ choose to ask."

"I thought it might," he agreed, amused at the recursive nature of her answer. "I've wondered, you know, ever since I realised I'd heard a new voice in my dream the morning I ended up on the branding barge. _You have to control it_ , the voice said; a voice I recognised when I met you. And Bedivere tells me dream appearances are a particular power of Merlin's. You were looking for me even then, before you came to the resistance."

"I knew you must still live, or Excalibur would have yielded to Vortigern's control long since," she shrugged in confirmation. "But I needed to make sure. When I felt the resonance of your dream, I knew it was time for me to make my next move."

"So, Merlin," Arthur concluded, shaking his head. Whether it was a title she'd inherited, or some sort of shape-shifting power that had brought a female Merlin to him in place of the one his father had known, it suggested he'd been on the right track in his earlier conversation with Bedivere. He set one hand on the hilt of Excalibur and another on the exposed blade, and let a little energy trickle through the visible runes, igniting them with a flickering blue light by way of reminder. _Take Me Up, Cast Me Away_. "What _would_ you will of me? Ask, and whatever it is, it shall be yours."

A faint line wrinkled between her brows as she registered the offer. "Even if I ask for the return of the Sword?"

"Even if you ask for the return of _your king's staff_ ," he agreed. "I've seen the wreckage of the tower in the Dark Lands, remember ... and the other ruins left there, as well. It used to be something else, didn't it? A kinder sort of place, before Mordred did whatever he did to unlock the darker powers."

Her mouth set in a firm line, and her gaze grew distant as she stared at the blade. "We called it Avalon, in those days. And perhaps one day it will be so again. But there are not enough of us left to cleanse and restore it in this lifetime. So what I would ask of you is nothing more or less than your father's promise: peace for my people among yours, for so long as your reign shall last. Time for us to heal, and to see what is left to us."

"Would that we _could_ all have that," he replied wryly, lifting his hands off the blade. "The Vikings don't seem very inclined to grant it. But as far as I can ensure it, I have no quarrel with that condition. Particularly if it means you choose to stay and take that seat at the Table."

"Even though you know now who I am?" she confirmed further, arching her brows.

It _did_ complicate things a little, Arthur had to admit; but not enough for him to revisit his plans. It made her more, not less, and very few things had the power to shock him after all the years he'd spent in the brothel. "You're not the only one who's more than you choose to show others," he shrugged. "I put my hand in yours and let you poison me with a snakebite; since I'm sitting here now wearing a crown rather than in a grave, I think I can still trust you to stand at my side, whatever other details might change."

Her gaze dropped to the scarred-over punctures on his throat; then a more genuine smile curved her mouth. "Perhaps I should be asking instead what you will of _me_. But there will be time for that, if there is time at all, once peace has arrived. You meet with the rest of the barons tomorrow?"

She was ethereally pretty when she smiled, like a being out of legend; entirely at odds with the stories he'd heard, but exactly as strange as the rest of his life had become, oddly reassuring in its way. "That's the plan. They won't all fall this side, but enough should that we can take the field without worrying about another coup happening behind us. The river's a help, but any other ideas you have about how to nudge the odds in our favour I'd love to hear."

"The difference between a man and a king," she mused, an old criticism with a new spin; but her eyes were bright, just enough encouragement to let him know she wasn't entirely opposed to the idea. "The plan is a sound one, at its base; but there are a few things about those barons that you might want to know...."

Arthur sat back and picked at the remains of his own meal as she continued, letting himself dwell, just for a moment, on that difference — and all the ways in which it was echoed by the woman in front of him.

But as she said, there would be time for that later. First, they had a few more enemies to turn into friends.


End file.
